All is fair in love and war. At least that is what I thought up until last night.
Last night Canadian culture vulture and wave rider hip hop megastar Drake hosted a special edition of his weekly OVO Sound Radio on Beats One Radio in honor of his birthday. On the show he debuted four new songs and announced he was releasing a new “playlist” in December titled More Life. The excitement of the songs releasing quickly turned into a social commentary on the worlds largest public forum, Twitter, about some of the lyrics on the song “Two Birds, One Stone.” On the record Drake sends multiple not so subliminal shots at cocaine cowboy turned silver tongued rapper G.O.O.D. Music President Pusha T and Kid Cudi, the latter of which have come under question.
“You were the man on the moon, now you just go through your phases, life of the angry and famous,” is a clear shot at Kid Cudi and the titles of his first two albums but doesn’t explicitly play on his bouts with depression and thoughts of suicide. “You stay xanned and perked up, so when reality set in you don’t gotta face it,” these bars are a bit more direct towards Cudi and his issues with drug abuse in the past and how they may help him battle his depression but ultimately play into his unravelling. He even ends the song with “look what happens when you talk to me crazy, is you crazy?” further playing on Cudi’s mental instability. So the big question is whether Drake crossed this imaginary line there is in hip hop. There are multiple different ways to look at this and to observe what is being said and whether it is out of bounds.
The first thing that must be done is to look at the source of the lyrics. Honestly these lyrics from Drake lack self awareness. A guy who has made his career off of being emotional and going through said “phases,” calling out another man for being emotional and depressed is like the pot calling the kettle black. But this is the only way that Drake can compete in any type of rap beef, which is by addressing the facts at hand. He cannot get on a track and rap about physically harming his contemporaries or anything too grimy because it wont be real or authentic. This is the same approach that Drake took with “Back to Back,” with the referencing of Nicki Minaj’s income and Meek being an opening act on her tour. Drake even played on Meek not being open and emotional enough (“this aint what she meant when she told you to open up more”). This is the only way Drake can win, by bringing up what we know and turning it into a negative for his adversary. This is what he does to Pusha T on this record also by calling him out on his past as a drug dealer. He’s into the business of exploring the facts, the same way Jay Z did on “Takeover” when addressing Nas.
Now to the question of whether the lyrics were out of bounds, my simple answer is no. I have seen people mention how Cudi is in rehab and can’t respond and how that makes this a cheap shot of some sort by Drake. Well for one Cudi called out Drake, Kanye, and “these niggas who don’t give a fuck about him,” first in a public forum. Kanye chose to go and rant on his Saint Pablo tour about Cudi and Drake chose to address it on his Summer Sixteen tour and now on wax. It’s also entirely possible that “Two Birds One Stone,” was recorded before Cudi even entered himself into rehab. Mental illness and depression is no joke, and Cudi standing up and admitting he needs help to take back control of his life and bring awareness to an issue that African Americans have turned a blind eye to for years is brave and commendable. But this doesn’t make the topic off limits when engaging in rap beef. In fact the bars brought to Cudi by Drake are a love tap compared to some of the more vulgar and nastier bars we have heard throughout hip hop’s history. That can come off as a cop out, lazy, and even irresponsible but those are the facts of the matter. Rappers are assholes, flat out, and their number one goal when engaging in rap beef is to verbally abuse their opponent over records. This Drake record doesn’t come off that way, it’s more like a warning shot. I think there is a line to be drawn in rap beef, particularly with children and the deceased, but not with personal issues you are battling. When Game dissed Beanie Siegel on “Pest Control,” and mentioned his battles with drug abuse, where was the outrage? Beans went to rehab just like Cudi to exorcise his demons. You cannot pick and choose, if we are going to hold Drake to the fire then we have to do the same for everybody else.
I for one did not think I would live long enough to see the day that Drake transformed in the eye of the public from the “softest rapper ever,” to the bully in hip hop but that is where we stand today. But this is the monster created by ghostwriting allegations and fending to stay at the top and maintain your place as the biggest artist in the genre. He will forever be on the defense, even willing to cross that imaginary line if need be to protect himself. But we can’t have it both ways from here on out, we are going to have to decide whether Drake really is a bully or just emotional, and if we call him out for this we will need to call out every questionable bar from here on out in rap beef. I’m not a fan of that alternative but if that is what hip hop has come to then so be it.
Besides, this isn’t real beef, Jim Jones already explained to us what that is. And this aint that. It never really is that.
Kameron Hay 